


Light Of My Light

by CassieWolfe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 00:26:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassieWolfe/pseuds/CassieWolfe
Summary: In which the Soldier is a massive stalker; Tony is sleep deprived and has no situational awareness; and James is just annoyed with everything and everyone.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	Light Of My Light

**Author's Note:**

> So.... this happened. I've had the concept of this in my prompts folder for months now, and then last night my brain just went "Writing now." and I wrote the entire thing in about two hours. Despite what the tags may have you believe, it really isn't all that dark. In case you can't tell, I don't like Steve. Also, don't ask what happened with the title, I really don't know.
> 
> Sorry to anyone who was hoping for more of one of my other works :(

Standing in the door of the laboratory, the Soldier observes its handler. The handler – the smart-person, the not-a-target – stands at a table, hands working busily. Noise blares from the speakers; to the Soldier it's nothing but an obnoxious distraction, but the handler likes it. The handler must always be kept happy, the Soldier knows. If a handler is unhappy, pain follows.

For now, the handler hasn't noticed the Soldier. Protecting its handler is so much easier when the Soldier remains unnoticed. There are too many that want to hurt the handler – the witch from Hydra with red in her hands and her heart; the dangerous maybe-target, who hates the handler and calls the Soldier “Bucky”; the always-angry archer who hides in the vents and mutters and plots; the cowardly one who is all sizes, who fears the Soldier; the one with wings who struck the handler's friend out of the sky and makes the handler cry at night when nobody's watching. (Nobody but the Soldier; the Soldier is always watching. Its handler would get killed in a day without the Soldier.)

A voice speaks. It's the ceiling voice, the Soldier's tentative mission assist. The voice is powerful and dangerous – it runs the entire building, subordinate only to the handler and the scary boss-lady in charge of the handler's company, but it puts up with the Soldier and helps navigate the complicated ventilation system. It would rankle a little, if the Soldier stooped to such things, that the archer has no trouble finding the way around while the Soldier needs constant direction when it goes beyond the living floors.

“Sir,” the ceiling voice says, “perhaps you should go to bed.”

The handler frowns. “I've had enough of nightmares, J.”

The Soldier frowns too. The handler needs to sleep. Soldering is not a wise activity for the sleep-deprived. The Soldier has no need of sleep or food, (the others take care of all that,) but it has a good idea of what regular humans need. And despite undeniable genius, the handler is still human, with human limitations.

Deciding to take a chance, the Soldier steps silently out of the shadows. The handler's safety is more important than staying unobserved. As it pads across the floor, boots making not a whisper, the Soldier flicks its wrist, letting a vial of harmless sleeping serum fall into its metal hand. (The hand the handler made for it. Just another way the handler was better than previous ones.)

The handler never turns. Unchallenged, the Soldier jabs the needle into its handler's neck. In seconds, the handler is collapsing to the cold floor. The Soldier checks one eye; all that shows is a sliver of white. Good. Hauling the handler over its shoulder, the Soldier hoists itself up into the vents. Good thing the vents are big as they are; the Soldier would never be able to drag its handler through anything smaller.

Lightly, it drops to the floor of the handler's room. Tucks the inert body under down covers, and stuffs a pillow under the handler's head. The Soldier doesn't smile – smiling is for emotions, and the Soldier is not allowed emotions – but the faint sense of a job well done drives it to nod slightly. Then, it sits tensely on the side of the bed. Perhaps, just this once, it can rest a little. After all, it's not like there's anyone to see; only the Soldier and the ceiling voice.

Tony wakes feeling safe. It's such an alien feeling that he lies still for a few minutes, eyes closed, to savor it. Even more unusual is the fact that he doesn't remember any nightmares. He can't think of the last time _that_ happened. Slowly, he peels his eyes open, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. Strange; he doesn't _think_ he made it to bed last night. In fact, the last thing he recalls is standing at his workstation, arguing with Jarvis about…

About going to bed.

A suspicion forms.

“Jarvis?” he says slowly. “Did you _drug_ me?”

“Don't be silly, Sir,” Jarvis responds tartly. “How could I get you here from your lab? You may recall, I have no body.”

Tony ruminates on that. He's missing something, he knows he is – but Jarvis wouldn't betray him, and nobody could take _his_ AI offline without triggering one of many alarms. Shrugging to himself, he struggles out of his blanket burrito – his _warm_ , _cozy_ blanket burrito.

Glancing around the room, his eyes land on slight dimples in the thick carpet. They're subtle but there, a sure sign that someone else was in here. His eyes travel up to the grate in the ceiling. Apparently, his stalker likes the air vents. If this was Barton's idea of a joke, he swears. The archer won't get new toys for a _month_. Still, at least that's one mystery solved.

Dragging on a shirt and padding barefoot out the door, Tony completely fails to notice a pair of eyes watching sharply from the barred grate. They blink once, then vanish. A dark mass moves silently over the opening of the vent, following Tony's heartbeat. As always, the genius is blissfully oblivious.

When morning comes, James opens his eyes to a dim metal tunnel filled with cobwebs and dust bunnies. Annoyed, he simply rolls his eyes and mutters a quiet, “Again?”

In the five months since moving into Stark Tower, James has tried to give off an air of stability. He’s tried to ensure that everyone around him considers him perfectly sane. He isn’t, of course, but they don't need to know that. Don't need to know that sometimes he blacks out for hours and wakes up in small hidden places, or that he dreams of a dashing soldier with short hair and a smile, or that when he stands very still and won't speak, he's arguing with the voices in his head.

They don't need to know because if they did, they'd try to _fix_ him, and they don't need fixing, James and Bucky and the Soldier. They work well together. Bucky flirts and the Soldier fights and James holds them together. And sometimes, just sometimes, something hits just right and for a moment they're one being, perfectly imperfect. A lithe, dangerous, _charming_ killing machine.

But for now, James is stuck in the vents. He carefully manoeuvres down, ignoring Bucky's wailing over their torn shirt and the Soldier's grumbling about its mission, the one it keeps shoving James out over. It's a very disquieting situation, being a spectator in his own head.

Rogers is waiting when James pads into the kitchen, so he slides back just a little to let Bucky take over. Bucky's the only one that can deal with Rogers, can smile and laugh and call him _Stevie_ like it hasn't been seventy years and a world of change since they were _Bucky-and-Steve_. James doesn't even know Rogers, young as he is, and Bucky really doesn't either. They're both so different, all they're really doing now is pretending. Playing out a puppet show with bodies that look the same, even though the person driving is different.

In their shared skull, James sighs heavily. The Soldier nudges him in rebuke, a mental poke like an elbow to the ribs, and Bucky falters momentarily in conversation. Rogers doesn't seem to notice, but James is consumed by guilt all the same. After all the time spent rebuking the others for near misses, he'd never live it down if he were the one to give them away.

Finally, Rogers is gone, and James can take over again. He's starting to suspect he's a bit of a control freak. Unfortunately, so is the Soldier. They've had a few spectacular fights over it, but today his companions seem happy to let him steer them to the cupboard and take out cereal. They need nutrition, not this trash, but frankly after waking up where he did, James is inclined to let them starve.

Hey. He never claimed to be a nice person.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it isn't clear: Bucky, James and the Soldier are all different personalities. They can communicate mentally, and any one of them can be in control. Bucky is the "original," but James is usually in charge of their body. They aren't big fans of Steve. The Soldier latched onto Tony as its handler (and kinda has a huge crush on him but shh nobody knows,) and the others are just like, _this guy's a dick._
> 
> The whole multiple personalities _thing_ was actually not planned - my prompt was basically just "Bucky gets triggered into the Winter Soldier and thinks Tony's his handler because Tony does all the stuff his Hydra handlers did (e.g. repairing the arm and providing supplies.)"


End file.
